


All That Glitters is not Goose

by beaubete



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-02
Updated: 2013-03-02
Packaged: 2017-12-04 02:15:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/705350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beaubete/pseuds/beaubete
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four days after its trip through a goose, Martin’s ring disappears.  Naturally, Arthur is afraid he’ll have to eat the dog now.  Written for the Cabin Crew Riot Two prompt: YELLOW.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All That Glitters is not Goose

**Author's Note:**

> The first of a few Cabin Pressure fics I wrote for the fandom party Cabin Crew Riot Two. I didn't get to participate as much as I'd have liked due to work and timing, but there are a few fanworks that I did complete; I hope you enjoy them!

Four days after its trip through a goose, Martin’s dad’s signet ring…changed colors.  The gold plate fell away in chunks and swathes, revealing the copper and then iron alloy beneath, something to do with the acidity of.  Well, the acidity of  _goose_.  The long and short of it was that what had once been a shiny yellow ring soon became a spotted yellow and orange ring before quickly becoming a shiny silver ring.  Martin was stricken; the ring could be repaired, of course it could, but it would be an extensive process of replating the ring in a jacket of copper and then again in gold.  It would take weeks and hundreds of pounds he didn’t have.

It was Arthur who noticed first, oddly enough.  “Mum,” he said to Carolyn.  “I think Skip’s got himself a pet.”

“I don’t care,” Carolyn replied breezily.

“Well, I mean that he’s lost his ring again; do you reckon he’s got himself another goose?”

This gave Carolyn pause; “No, idiot boy, I don’t think Martin’s got himself another goose.  Lord knows he was scared enough of the first one.  I’d be tempted to give him one for his birthday, but that I think he’d try but fail to eat it.”

“Did he eat the last one?” Arthur asked.

“Of course not, Arthur.  I paid for the goose.  We got the goose,” Carolyn said.

“Do we have a pet goose, Mum?!” Arthur asked, excited.

“No, we do not have a pet goose.  We had a goose.  And we had pudding after.”

“Mum!” Arthur gasped, the very picture of righteous horror.

“Martin does not have a goose, Arthur.  He’s just misplaced his ring.  Do us a favor and don’t let’s bring it up in front of him; we bought a goose last time because of that blasted ring, and I don’t want to know what it’d cost me this time.”

Arthur made it exactly thirty-seven minutes.

“Skip lost his ring and Mum made us eat a goose!” he declared to Douglas, who hummed and sipped his coffee.

“Bit unkind, even for Carolyn, isn’t it?  Celebrating like that,” Douglas offered.

“We weren’t celebrating, we ate Skip’s pet goose!”

“I wasn’t aware Martin even had a pet goose,” Douglas mused.  “Boy, student housing _has_  gotten lax.”

“But Mum says we might have to eat something else now Skip’s lost his ring,” Arthur said, prodding Douglas back to the topic at hand.

“Tell you what, make it a pasta bolognaise and I may even join you,” Douglas said genially.

“No, I mean we need to find Skip’s ring before Mum goes after something else— _Snoopadoop_!” Arthur blurted in horrified realization.

“Arthur.  Arthur, I am going to stop you there, before this goes any further: Carolyn is not going to serve that ridiculous piece of fluff with mint jelly for this week’s roast.  Martin?” Douglas called, drawing Martin from the cabin.  “Show Arthur your ring before he starts any further down this path.  The only destination at the end is pain and PETA.”

“I, uh,” Martin stammered, fiddling with the bare spot on his finger.  “I can’t show Arthur the ring.  I left it at home.”

“You see, Arthur?  He left it at home; the cockapoo is safe of the frying pan another day.”

“I mean,” Martin continued, face pulling into an unhappy frown.  “I can’t wear it anymore.  It didn’t react well to a trip through.  A goose.”

“So few things do,” Douglas agreed.

“All the, all the yellow-y bits came off of it, and now it’s.  And it’s all my fault it’s ruined, so I thought I’d leave it…where it can’t be hurt again,” Martin said, fully twitching now, frowning down at the empty spot on his hand.

“Martin,” Douglas said, sighing.

“No, I-I know.  It’s silly, really.  It’s just.  I broke it, and it’s all my fault.  I mean, I didn’t _plan_  for geese,” Martin reminds them.

“And there’s your first mistake,” Douglas told him.

“But I should have been more careful,” Martin said finally.  “So.  So I feel upset about it, but it’s my own fault.  And I’m just going to leave it at home until I can—somehow—fix it, and then I’m going to be more careful with it.”

The matter dropped, and if Douglas lost a few more bets—nothing large, a couple of quid here or there, and never traceable or with any kind of pattern, because he’s _Douglas Richardson_ —and the ring made a return, shining and yellow and firmly attached to a gold chain that looked like it’s seen better days, he certainly didn’t share a secretive smile with Carolyn.  And Arthur was glad he never had to eat Snoopadoop—a dog that smelled that bad wouldn’t taste much better, he reckoned.


End file.
